The AGR newspaper bids you farewell

Yes. It's true. This week saw the last newsprint edition of the Asheville Global Report. After publishing consistently every week by the seat of our pants for almost eight and a half years, this newspaper is being laid to rest. Much has changed since 1999, when three local activists, shocked and appalled at the dangerous misinformation surrounding the war on Yugoslavia, took matters into their own hands to produce a freely available alternative. What started out as an eight page newsletter photocopied at Kinkos has since blossomed into a unique, award-winning, grassroots, multimedia enterprise. A combination of several factors has led to our newspaper's demise. But our publication is by no means alone. The past year has seen many strong progressive media endeavors meet a similar fate: Clamor, LiP Magazine and the NewStandard, just to name a few. The difficulties in sustaining a grassroots independent media franchise of this sort have never been more apparent. Though most of AGR's reasons for stopping publication are particular to us, we do share with our defunct colleagues many overlapping reasons as well: sudden and massive postage hikes, an increasingly competitive non-profit environment over shrinking resources, and an overall lack of support and recognition of the importance of independent media. Admittedly, the Asheville Global Report newspaper was largely an experiment– and a successful one of which our numerous volunteers and supporters are extremely proud. Against multiple odds, our all-volunteer staff, with the crucial help of our readership and advertisers, cheated total forfeiture too many times to count. This cat had more than nine lives. The reality is that there just aren't many reader-supported, 501©(3) non-profit weekly newspapers out there. But we managed to make it work, howevermuch by the skin of our teeth, and at no small amount of sacrifice of some of our volunteers. Indeed, the collective pool of literally hundreds of peoples' time, energy, labor and resources to ensure the continued production and distribution of 2,900 copies of a newspaper–because either they wanted more information they weren't getting or thought it could really make a difference for the preservation of democratic discourse and freedom–has been nothing less than heroic. So many low-paid workers who have devoted their precious free time and labor. So many people with fixed incomes who couldn't afford to donate money, but did. So many musicians, artists and writers who freely gave their time and talents to organize countless benefit shows and author articles. And a notably small stable of advertisers with the integrity and backbone to support this project, not because our ads were cheap or they thought it would drum up business, but because they believed it was worthwhile. We're genuinely sad, knowing not only that a void for hard national and international news will be left in our absence on the streets of Asheville, but for subscribers in almost every state of the union. The GOOD NEWS is that our little flagship tugboat has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. It's carried us to a place where the baton has been passed to a more sophisticated method of information transportation. The newspaper's passing marks not just an end, but the beginning of an exciting new era for Asheville Global Report, unthinkable a year ago, let alone over the course of our miraculous print run. Through our website, radio show and relatively new TV program, AGR is now potentially reaching 26-28 million homes, a feat that would never have been possible with the newspaper. And these figures are growing. AGRTV can now be seen on Free Speech TV on the Dish satellite network, as well as cable access channels in Asheville, Raleigh and Chapel Hill. This past week marked our debut in Boone, and next week the under-reported news you've come to expect from AGR will be available to hundreds of thousands of people in Atlanta. Last month also saw a remarkable spike in our website traffic–the most in about a year–a number that has already been surpassed this month with over 3,600 people logging on daily. So though we're sadly announcing our newspaper's funeral, it's with no small amount of excitement and optimism for the rest of the AGR enterprise. We may not be on the streets and in your hands, but we're still here. And we're reaching more people than ever before. And we can always use your help. Thanks again for being there for us all these years. It has meant a great deal more to us than you may ever know. Onward and upward, Asheville Global Report